New Towners, like Michael and Danielle Pasatieri, say it's working.
"In U. City, we didn't know our neighbors' names and here we know everyone's names up and down the road," one New Towner remarked.
The focus in New Town is "walkability." The town layout, broken into neighborhoods, provides easy pedestrian access to everything in the community including family activities, performances at the amphitheater and just neighborly visits on old-fashioned front porches, as described by Susan Rhoades.
"It's not uncommon for someone to be out on their porch and we'll go down to talk and pretty soon it's ten o'clock. And, we're just talking," she said.
No house is more than two blocks from water, whether a lake, canal or fountain. Town planners came up with this picturesque way to deal with a necessity: storm water run-off. Instead of building a giant eyesore of a reservoir they laced the town with a system of water features. The earth that was dug out was used to raise the land for added flood protection. Busse says they're now above the 500 year flood plain.
Home prices vary greatly. They start as little as 130 thousand dollars up to a million. There's a reason for the wide range, according to Busse.
"It's all mixed up together so you have houses that people out of college can afford and captains of industry can afford. They all live together here like small town America was before World War II," he said.
Home "styles" are diverse too. You'll find sophisticated townhouses along the central canal.
